Gol D. Ace In Coiling Dragon

Four years went by in the blink of an eye. After guessing what happened to his mother in the past that caused her extreme reaction that day meeting Lance, Ace trained like a madman, albeit without his mother or anyone realising.

He spent the next two years of his life focusing on his flexibility. When he turned four, he began adding light muscular exercises into his workout regimes – all the while making sure to spend his nights training his observation haki. Though, he cursed himself for not paying more attention to pops or the others about the best ways to train it.

In his last life, he was content with being a brute, so he virtually ignored his observation haki other than using it in its most basic form.

He knew there was likely a better method, but his haki training simply consisted of him keeping his observation haki stretched to its maximum for as long as possible. He realised that he would lose consciousness as soon as he reached his limits, so he decided to make that the last thing he did before going to sleep.

After three years, he suddenly remembered Thatch had tried to explain that although spreading your observation haki out in its raw form is effective as it allows you to feel the auras of others, by compressing it, you can see everything in your sphere of observation as if you had a bird's eye view.

The only prerequisite was that you needed to be able to spread your haki over 100 meters. In his last life, his observation haki barely reached 50 meters which was why he didn't pay the advice any mind, but in this life, it was literally ten times what it was.

When compressed, his area of observation was only 5 meters, but everything within that 5 meters was constantly projected in his mind. The other thing he noticed was that in its compressed state, he could see a myriad of multi-coloured specs of light. Although he couldn't control them in any way, shape, or form, he could still tell that they represented the various elements of a mage.

From that day on, he changed his haki training to hold his haki's compressed state for as long as possible.

Though he knew his method of training would probably be described as primitive by those who specialised in observation haki from his previous life, it saw results. After three and a half years, his haki could reach 1 kilometre in circumference in its normal state and 10 meters when compressed.

Even though he would consistently train his observation, he refrained from using his armament haki at all, not wanting to do anything to stunt his growth and affect his future. But that didn't stop him from becoming a training maniac, especially as he began to see the results of his hard work paying off. Still, nothing could compare to the excitement he was feeling today!

"Come on, Mom, we're gonna be late!" Ace exclaimed with pure excitement plastered on his face as he pulled his mom through the busy streets of Wushan Town.

"Haha, Ace, calm down. We're already 20 minutes early."

Milianna replied as she allowed her overexcited child to drag her down the street with a genuinely cheerful smile.

"But we don't know how long it will take us to register."

This was one of the few times Ace didn't have to 'act' his age. The childish excitement he was exhibiting was 100% real, and it was for no other reason than that today was the day he started his warrior training.

Within minutes, the mother-son duo had arrived at the empty area in the town's eastern region.

By the time they arrived, several dozen children were already congregating in three separate areas.

The northernmost group constituted children between 6 and 8, the 9 to 12-year-olds stood in the centre, and those in the south were the teenagers.

Ace scanned the training fields with an excited grin. 'Here is where it starts!'

Seeing him grinning excitedly, Milianna shook her head helplessly before leading him to where two of the Baruch Clan's guards were leisurely waiting to begin the class.

As they neared, the blonde guard with his back to them turned around and was caught off guard at who it was.

"Mil…

Milianna!"

"Hi Lance."

Milianna shyly replied.

Ace could only roll his eyes at their display. Over the last four years since their initial encounter, they would run into each other every once in a while, but their conversations would consist of one or two sentences before they both hurried along.

Ace wasn't against his mom meeting someone as he was well aware that he couldn't be her everything, but he absolutely refused to be her wingman. Even though he knew the incident from four years ago was still holding them back, and his part to play didn't help, this was the one battle he wouldn't help his Mother with.

Seeing how Lance and this woman were acting, the other guard, a stocky bald man, seemed to put two and two together.

"So you're Milianna? Lance here has told me a lot about you. I'm Falkes." He said politely. "And you must be Ace? Judging by the excitement on your face, you must be here to start your warrior training. Just to ensure you're old enough, how old are you now?"

"I just turned six today?" Ace eagerly replied.

"You just turned six today? Haha, you couldn't even wait to start training till after your birthday?"

The bald-headed guard asked with an amused smile.

"Us coming here today is all he wants as a birthday present," Milianna answered helplessly.

"Haha, becoming a powerful warrior is the dream of just about every young boy," Falkes added before pointing to the kids lining up in the northern sector of the field. "Go line up with the other kids over there. That will be where you'll train for the next couple of years."

Ace hurriedly gave his mom a big hug, which she happily returned before running over to where all the other kids his age were.

"Don't worry, he'll be fine; the training for the younger children is more of an introduction than anything else," Lance explained, trying to ease the worry on Milianna's face after Ace ran off.

"I understand, thank you. Am I alright to stay and watch?" Milianna asked in return, evidently still worried about Ace.

"Of course, many of the parents often stay and watch," Falkes responded, pointing to a group of adults a few hundred meters away before he continued. "Especially on their children's first day."

"Thank you." She responded before walking over to the rest of the worried parents.

"Take care, Milianna," Lance said, which elicited a shy wave from his crush and a burst of laughter from his fellow guard.

"I've never seen you like that before!" Falkes teased.

"I can't help it; she just has that effect on me."